Field
The present disclosure relates generally to networked computer systems, and more particularly, to techniques of failover and live migration of zero/thin clients in session with a remote machine.
Background
Computers are becoming increasingly ubiquitous, and are becoming pervasively integrated into the environment. For many users, this introduces the issue of configuring, maintaining and managing operating systems, applications and data on a number of computers.
A thin client device or zero client device is a client computer that operates in a client-server architecture. Thin clients are arranged to perform as little processing as possible, and the majority of the processing is performed by a server to which the thin client device is connected. This is in contrast to regular desktop or laptop computers (which can be considered “thick” clients), as the majority of the processing is performed on a local processor.
As the user's data, applications and operating systems are installed centrally on the server in a thin client architecture, the issue of configuring, maintaining and managing the computers becomes more manageable for the user. A single server can be arranged to support a large number of thin client devices. Furthermore, the lower amount of processing power used by a thin client device enables it to be made smaller and more power efficient than an equivalent “thick” client.
As a user's data and applications (known as the user's session) are predominantly located on the server, there is a need for effective thin client device session management, in order to enable the user to reliably and securely access their session. Further, zero/thin client devices that are physically connected to Keyboard-Video-Mouse (KVM) using cables can have downtime issues. If a zero/thin client device fails or the device requires software/firmware/hardware upgrade, there may be a considerable downtime. The downtime can adversely impact the productivity and also interrupt current activities on that particular zero/thin client. Therefore, there is also a need to utilize wireless zero/thin client and peripherals provide high availability to zero/thin clients devices.